Marilyn+logger

Logger Notes--June 28

EXTRA, EXTRA!!! READ ALL ABOUT IT!! SCKWP WRITERS INVADE THE CITY OF HUTCHINSON!!!

We will be starting off today in the classified section, looking at. . ANNOUNCEMENTS! Gerri started our day by announcing that Nancy was home getting ready for those three darling grandkids who were going to come visit; then she said we would flip the agenda around, working on individual writing in the morning and presenting in the afternoon. Everyone jumped with joy, but before we started writing, we had to flip to ..... LOST AND FOUND because, viola!! Dan has been found! Yeah!!--but wait!! Where has Dennis gone? Is the pressure of working with twelve slightly crazy women wearing these fellows down? We didn’t mean to scare you, guys! I sure hope we find Dennis on Monday! Whoops, it’s time to turn to the next page-- SPECIAL NOTICES! Teralyn and Sammy needed to talk to us about putting our works into the anthology. Teralyn gave us some specifics regarding the cost and printing of the book, and Sammy explained how to submit our works. After all that technology talk, we flipped on over to an agricultural section called..... FEED AND SEED!! Sammy brought some very tasty cheese dip, chips and muffins. We all ate heartily. (Perhaps we should’ve categorized this under agriculture--piglets). That was sure good food, Sam! After lunch, Dan said he was more than ready to present his teacher demonstration, so we flipped to the...... HOROSCOPES? “Why horoscopes?” I asked myself? “Because he wanted us to look into the future, you big dummy!” I answered myself! And the really good news is that the future is only 12 steps away! (unless you’re talking about losing weight! that takes a LOT more steps)! Dan explained how to set a goal, how to identify a vision and how to take off and run with it. (Run? Dan’s way too involved in that cross country stuff)! Sitting next to Dan were two ladies in noticeable need for a visit to ANNIE’S MAILBOX ! This is the section people go to to ask for advice. I don’t think Rachel actually asked for advice, but Kendra was sure giving her some! Apparently, Kendra finds the phrase, “This sucks!” offensive so was enlightening Rachel about some other possible word choices that might be more appropriate for her to use. Quiet, shy Rachel talking trash?? There’s a dark side to that girl!! We were not sure that Annie resolved their problem, so we just went ahead turned to the next page; it was categorized as OIL / MINERALS. This relates to Meg’s article summary in that she thought the author had dug himself into a pit and was pretty well stuck in it. He offered advice about grading students’ writing (the importance of being objective, not giving pity points to students who are troubled, not giving students’ higher scores because the student’s opinion was the same as the grader’s), but overall, Meg thought the article was fractured and contradictory. She was especially unhappy about having asked for those extra ten pages to read because they were not one bit helpful!! After taking a short break, it was time for Reader’s Chair so we flipped the page to the page where a word puzzle called JUMBLE was found. This was an appropriate location to visit in that Kendra started reading an excerpt from a book--but that crazy woman read it to us in German!! None of us understood a thing she said!! However, we were all bustin’ with pride that she could speak one and a half languages as well as she did! That German talk reminded me a lot of a cat trying to cough up a hairball, but then she got hold of an English translation which made much more sense!! It was an interesting story. We all felt real sorry for that poor little baby bastard who was born without pheromones, and we all were glad to learn that babies should smell like caramel. (I’ve changed a lot of babies, but they sure didn’t smell like caramel! Sometimes it did look like caramel though)! Was that the reason the book was called PERFUME? By now, Shirleen and Becky were acting right antsy, antici-pating Friday’s writing marathon, so they suggested we flip to the section called TRAVEL. These two gals presented us with maps so the out-of-towners would know how to get to Carey Park. These ladies will be our guides--taking us to all the scenic spots the park has to offer! (They are praying for nice, dry weather). We’ll see if that native American Indian dance song they did worked. (Wish we all could’ve seen that)! Normally we do prompts first thing in the morning, but you gotta remember that Gerri turned the day upside down so......we flipped a couple pages back to agriculture and settled on the subheading FIREWOOD because Christine’s prompts surely did light everybody up!! We had a choice of making one change in eduction or having a thirty minute conversation with our very own G. W. Bush. Man oh man did things get hot!! Everyone wrote a long time, and, when it was time to share, it was obvious that we were going to have to flip over to the EDITORIALS!! Wow!! Did we ever see some colorful diction and imagery!! And mood--oh my goodness we had mood all over the place! Most everyone shared their writing--some were poetry-based, some persuasive, some compared education past to present, some were diatribes, (rightfully so)!! and others were personal narrations about teaching experiences (avoiding a parent by hiding under a desk, having to listen politely to a parent on the phone, chewing one’s butt, etc.). Bottom line though, no one is celebrating Dubba’s NCLB program, nor do any of us seem too excited about the myriad assessments we all are required to give our students. Sandy was 100% correct, when she repeated again, “We take all the blueberries, Mr!” And we do take all those berries because we are dedicated teachers who do want what is best for our kids. After that very intense discussion (thank you very much, Christine!) we were all ready to call it quits--but wait !!! Gerri had some sad news to give us, so she directed us to the... OBITUARIES!!!!!?? Lord have mercy!!..what now? Seems PHMS is dead to us. Between choices of working in a ‘safe’ room (wonder what we’d be safe from)? or working in a wet-dog smelling room with no windows, Gerri rejected either option. May PHMS rest in peace... and may our new home be a friendly one! Well, writers, ... it’s time for me to put this paper to bed! Night, all!